El Coro de Mi Gente

All the tracks of this album – Amparanoia's ninth – feature a big-name guest from the Hispanic music world, including Manu Chao, Marinah from Ojos de Brujo, Colombian alt-rockers Aterciopelados and Puerto Rican singer Mimi Maura. The album title, meaning ‘Chorus of My People’ and song titles such as ‘Hacer Dinero’ (Making Money) make it evident that here is a grouping sympathetic to singer Amparo Sánchez's politics. Over 15 songs, we get sizzling salsa and cumbia beats, Mexican mariachi, Shadows-style Western guitar, Spanish, English and French lyrics, funky synth wah-wah and a 1980s-style undulation backed by a reggae beat on another. It's no surprise Calexico feature as guests, as their neo-gothic ‘frontera’ spirit broods over several songs.

Sánchez might well be the foremost Spanish exponent of pan-Latin fusion right now, and she is wise to ally herself with a few of her precursors and natural stablemates. While the music rarely reaches the rootsy depths or ironic heights of, say, David Byrne's Rei Momo, it's all riotously good fun, the agit-prop of anti-capitalism anthems delivered with infectious humour, a carnivalesque chaos of sounds and plenty of catchy tunes.